Free/Slow University of Warsaw graphic, designed by Krzysztof Bielecki

In the February issue of e-flux journal, Ewa Majewska explores the recent work of theorist Gerald Raunig, which focuses on the crisis of universities, especially in Europe:

In Raunig's analysis the university, and the humanities in particular, are a political matter, not because of their supposedly "disinterested beauty," alienated from any social and political context, but precisely because they constituted a zone of critique, resistant to marketization and financialization, and they therefore enrich the cultural experience of contemporary individuals ...

It only is via protests and resistance that the university becomes a public space again. The occupations, as paradoxical as it might sound, remind us of the proper educational function of universities. One of the most valuable aspects of Raunig’s book is the way it shows the productivity inherent to resistance. This resistance does not follow the masculine, heroic patterns of previous uprisings. It is a modest, playful resistance, like that of a subversive mouse. The precarious of the world do indeed unite in Raunig’s text—or at least they see a common horizon in the becoming of a rebellious song.